Vermillion Vignettes
by MorgannaLeFae
Summary: Drabbles of one hundred words. That they are people: full of broken edges and jagged scars.
1. Ifs

Teresa could love him. He pulls her pigtails and reads her mind and smiles that smile, and she could. A sparkle catches on nimble fingers, and a gold band reminds her: she can't.

Not him, whose heart belongs to a dead woman and child, whose soul is the plaything of a serial killer.

Some day. But their tale has no happy ending, only the dead.

If he weren't so broken; but that means no (dead) wife, and that means the SCU, alone, with less closed cases.

She'll take what she can; the tricks, the capers, the smiles, the laughs.

Maybe.

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><p><strong>I claim no ownership.<strong>

**A set of thoughts concerning characters. Jumps back and forth between episodes and seasons.**


	2. Hers

**I own a CD of jazz.**

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><p>He feels like he's been sucker-punched. Except no bruise, bump, beating has ever hurt as much as this.<p>

He thinks it's funny, that regardless of all the hurt he's felt and of all the people to have ever hurt him, she's the best at it. She, with her fire-hair and soft smile and want to prove herself to everyone; she's the only one who can destroy him like this.

At least he can still see her everyday. Feel his heart pound and fingers tingle, before remembering that she's no longer his. Even though Wayne still belongs to Grace.


	3. Promises

**I own a blue ribbon with red flowers.**

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><p>The light hits her hair, through the car window or while walking down a street. And he is breathless, caught unawares by her. It hurts, burns, stabs, tears his little broken heart (soul) to pieces.<p>

She'll laugh, ever so rare, and it is precious.

She smiles, corners up-turned, I'm-trying-not-to-be-amused, smiles. He smiles too.

Her eyes haunt him. Heart-stopping green, piercing, fierce, and oh-so broken.

Patrick promises himself that he'll never break her more. But he's already made a promise to a little blue-eyed child, and that promise has to come first.


	4. Watching

**I own a raccoon key-chain.**

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><p>Kimball watches, behind books and blank eyes. He stays quiet, watching.<p>

He loves his team, a would-willingly-die-to-protect love. Which is why some days he wants to kidnap Jane and shoot him and bury him in a forest. Which is why he wants to shake VanPelt until she takes Rigby back, because their love for each other is tearing them apart. Which is why he wants to scream and yell at Lisbon to not smile at Jane that way because the man is broken and a wreck and she _can't fix him_.

But he doesn't, he watches.


	5. Leverage

**I own a nail file.**

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><p>She is amused. She's heard all about the infamous Mr Patrick Jane. Everyone who is an anybody in law enforcement has. So, when she hears that she's going to be tasked with keeping him in line, she needs to think of something. It falls into place when she meets him. He's sitting, feet up and eyebrows raised and smirking as she proceeds to compliment and insult Lisbon all within a minute.<p>

She threatens Teresa Lisbon's job.

Madeleine likes Teresa. She's an excellent agent and a woman to boot. But there is only one thing to keep Patrick in line: her.


	6. Tea

**I own a box of green tea.**

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><p>Tea is his balm. Soothing, soft and delicious. It is his respite from the death that he immerses himself in, a calm harbour in which to dock,a safe port. Tea has never let him down, and as long as Rigsby isn't the one brewing it, it never will.<p>

He drank tea before Angela. It's one of the few things in his life that isn't saturated with her or Charlotte or Red John. He doesn't hurt as much when he drinks tea.

Red John was drinking tea while Patrick was a floor away.

He wonders if there's tea in prison.


	7. Betrayal

**I own a copy of Season Two on disk. It's sitting in my DVD player.**

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><p>Grace <em>hurts hurts hurts<em>. Soul deep, unfixable, even a bandaid can't make it better hurt.

Jane is _gone gone gone_, and Lisbon is following him _down down down_ the rabbit hole. Cho's struggling to stay composed while Wayne is crumbling inside his happy facade.

As for Grace, she _hurts hurts hurts_ so bad, because she's only a Junior Agent who screwed up terribly, and there's nothing she can do to fix any of it (them). And she'll never ever amount to anything (Lisbon) because she's almost got the people she loves _dead dead dead,_ twice, by loving the wrong man.


	8. Bang

**I own a book debating the merits of zombies, versus those of unicorns.**

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><p>Bang. Bang. Bang.<p>

Each shot rings in his ears. Then the screams.

_Smile on the wall, door, face. The face he smiled to adoring crowds (fools). And red toes to match hands, necklaces, dresses. She wore a red flower in her hair when she wore her white dress. And oh God! (Patrick doesn't believe in God) they're gone and he can't follow._

The red stains the ground as he drops the gun. He picks up his teacup and wonders if tonight he will be able to sleep without the imagined cries of his child, screaming for help, haunting his dreams.


	9. Wrong

**Thank you everyone who has re(a)d or reviewed, you make me smile. I own nothing, except maybe some play-doh**

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><p>Madeleine looks around, and she wants to cry. Teresa, her beautiful protector is lying in her own blood, with a look of utmost concentrations as she hangs up the phone. There's a dead man (monster) on the floor with her children hiding upstairs. And standing next to her, gun still wavering in the air, is a broken redheaded girl, with her tattered soul shot through on the ground and the ghosts of horrors long forgotten ringing in her ears.<p>

She cries, because somehow she knows that something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong and these people will never recover from this.

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><p><strong> Normalscaresme - Zombies Vs Unicorns, compiled by Holly Black and Justine Labarlestier<strong>


	10. Monster

**I'm neither a thief nor an inventor, merely a borrower.  
><strong>

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><p>There's a monster in her bedroom. He's a bad monster, who whispers scary stories in her ears about a dead princess and a sad knight. He doesn't look like a monster, but her daddy has taught her that monsters don't have to have big teeth and claws.<p>

Charlotte is mad that mummy won't come into her room to scare the monster away, everyone knows that monsters are scared of parents. She cries out in the night, but mummy and daddy don't come to save her. With creeping feet, she sneaks in and sees that mummy's toes are painted red.

*Screams*


	11. Reborn

**I own nothing but silly, disjointed thoughts.**

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><p>There is a man in the cell. He glows orange in the dark; blue suits (and further back sparkles) remain as hazy memories. This is not the man's first time sitting in a cell, but the first time had been a game. Life had always been a game; a play meant to amuse and distract from the tragic hero plotting murder. The man has been in the cell for what is a lifetime already: a new life, for the man has died and been reborn into a different world, again.<p>

Patrick Jane dares not dream about his brown couch (home).


	12. Vulnerable

**I do not own _the Mentalist_. Unfortunately.**

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><p>She's spinning out of control, and it doesn't matter how much pain and fear and anger she bottles up, it keeps spilling out of the lock boxes in her brain. She smiles, and tries to go about and not <em>scream<em>, because her fingerprints are on a gun (murder weapon) and she doesn't know if she _killed_ him or not.

They all watch her with worried, wondering eyes and all she wants is to yell and kick and break something.

And Jane's in her space and in her house and in her mind. And Teresa Lisbon has never felt more vulnerable.


	13. Obsession

**I own three broken crayons and a _Snapple_ lid.**

**Tag: 2.1**

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><p>He almost snarls. He feels like a leopard, his prey stolen by a lion. Red John is <em>his<em>, Virgil knows that. And Lisbon, dear sweet Lisbon, is protesting, because she _wants_ this case too. Not for the same reasons, but Patrick knows that she wants to rip Red John to shreds for the destruction he's caused, though not as violently as he.

Virgil refuses, _too close_ he says. And that's true, he's too close. This case burns in his veins, fills his sleeping hours and his waking days. It buzzes, always, pushing him over the knife's thin edge.

**His.**


	14. Lex

**I own a ruler with the first inch snapped off.**

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><p>Luther Wainwright; he rolls the name around in his mouth; a child with puppy dog eyes and clear cut morals. His smile is full of nails and razors and something a bit less sharp. He likes Luther, full of theories and statistics and <em>good<em>.

He thinks that this could be fun. An interesting distraction at the very least. He laughs a little at the accusations that Luther offers him. He ponders how far he'll be able to push this one, everyone has a breaking point.

Yes, fun.

A little part of him wonders what the new boss thinks of Superman.


	15. Peon

**I don't own nothing, not even the book sitting next to me. It's all borrowed.**

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><p>The face on the wall brings a smile to his own. He knows the game (he's been playing for long enough). He knows the stakes. James Panzer didn't. James Panzer is dead.<p>

He wonders at hamartia, and thinks it (hopes, prays it won't) will be his end.

He doesn't mind that pride is his downfall, as long as it's Red John's downfall first.

He isn't sorry. James Panzer (San Joaquin Killer) would have gone on and on. The dead girls would have piled up and the FBI would have never caught up.

He thinks this might be what Luther meant.


	16. Con

**I own nothing.**

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><p>She can read him.<p>

Not like a book and not always, but she can read him.

And yes, he cons her into getting him out of the hospital. (But: _Jane __floating,__ cold,__ no __breath, __pleasepleaseplease,__ cross __tattooed __to __her __hand_.) She was a little off balance.

He's harder to read. Harder without all the pain. (Harder, harsher, colder, _dead __inside_.)

But when he comes in with a little girl in a red dress, she can read him. Cold cash in his pocket, cold dread in his heart.

So Teresa takes him to the house. And shatters him to pieces. Again.


	17. Ghosts

**I do not own the Mentalist *sobs***

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><p>Craig is there. Standing right in front of her in his stupid suit with that stupid smile and looking just as he did the day she met him, the day she fell in love with him, the day she shot him.<p>

He _isn't_, she knows that, but he is. And her heart is still laying broken somewhere, and now to top it off she has a stupid golden necklace and a stupid ghost following her around.

Jane makes it better. The man who speaks to (for) the dead tells her it's alright (he knows). So she'll keep the stupid necklace.


	18. Offspring

**I own a box of 96 crayons and a _Tangled_ giant colouring book**

* * *

><p>Oh god. <em>ohgodohgodohgod<em>

He's going to have a baby (well, _he _isn't, but he's contributed half the genetic material to make a new living breathing human being, so the sentiment is the same).

But he's so worried.

Worried about being a good dad. (Hands and feet and "why can't you be a goddam fucking man!")

Worried about Sarah (he loves her, sorta, but not enough he thinks).

Worried because Jane was the best father in the world, and Wayne has seen the pictures.

Then Grace comes by and says "I think you'll be a great dad". _Wish it were her_.


	19. Smug

**I own a _TV_ on which I _watch_ The Mentali****st :)  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Somewhere along the line (tremulous tears and silent secrets shared), the tricks stopped being a nuisance and became part of the game. Who can solve the murder first?<p>

Often it's Jane (most of the time).

While she works with her phone records and witness statements and financial information, he flits about, capturing an expression here, an incongruous tone of voice there.

So when he's _wrong_ (rare, fleeting, _bad bad bad, "Daddy don't let him hurt me" she screamed_), she takes all the joy from it that she can.

Teresa might not have known who did it, but neither did Patrick.


	20. Misstep

**I own a**** blue scarf with white flowers**

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><p><em>He <em>brought this about. _He_ lured Red John out of hiding.

And now a man with nothing to do with any of this is dead. Patrick remembers the slightly nervous medical examiner who was more than happy to help.

There is more blood on his hands now. (his wife, his daughter, everyone since)

And now Agent Darcy is balancing on a knife edge, sway too far and her blood will be next.

He doesn't know if this is all for him or not.

Cho and Rigsby and VanPelt and Lisbon (Teresa) are enough work to protect. Now someone else too.


	21. Shiva

**I do not own the Mentalist, or its wonderful cast. Review? If only to say which one is your favourite...  
><strong>

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><p>She wants to make him <em>feel<em>. And she'll use whatever it takes to have one tear mar his pretty little facade of indifference (words and actions and hands and teeth, tongue, mouth, _oh god! __**please**_).

But he won't. Crack, crumble.

Damn him. He's already pulled her high walls down, and can't be enough a gentleman to allow the same, even if he's gentlemanly enough to look at her like she's a _person_ and not a commodity. (Which is funny, because he's paying her, just like the rest.)

Summer wants Kimball to break, because loving him right now is a crime.


	22. Viridescent

**I own a cactus that I named Fred. He has a red pot.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>She isn't jealous.<p>

Teresa Lisbon doesn't _do_ jealous.

She just isn't pleased that Jane managed to con the chief into letting a convicted murderer wander the streets and play dress up with _her_ consultant.

She's wary, that's all.

Erica Flynn can make men do what she wants with a bat of her lashes, but hopefully Jane won't fall for that. Erica won't escape.

There's a gold shackle on his hand that winks at him, distracting from any pretty face.

(But he looks at Erica in a way that makes her scowl. And she doesn't want to think why that is.)


	23. Prayer

**If I owned it, I wouldn't know such angst.**

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><p>Mother always used to say that if you pray to your lost loved ones, they hear you.<p>

(Holy Mary, Mother of God,)

Some days, that is the only thing that gets Teresa through the day.

(pray for us sinners,)

The days that she can't blink for the blood on her lids. The days that she can't breathe for the weight on her soul.

(now and in the hour of our death.)

Now she prays to Charlotte and to Angela, now she prays that they can do what she can't accomplish: bring him home, so she breath and blink again.

(Amen.)


	24. Because

**No ownership here.**

* * *

><p>Love you.<p>

Two perfect words that haven't passed his lips in eight years. (Almost nine now.)

He gives them to her.

Because her hair is a mess.

Because her eyes are wild.

Because her heart is broken and shattered on the jagged rocks of his pain and his tragedy and his selfish quest.

Because he's sold his soul to the devil (over and over) for the chance of absolution, but she's the one who grants him redemption.

Two perfect words before he blows the remains of the ordered world that she's managed to hold onto to pieces.

(Because they're true.)


	25. Loyalty

**I do not own the Mentalist.**

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><p>"For the boss."<p>

Grace has fire in her eyes and razor blades in her smile. She's spent six months watching the life drain out of Teresa, the hurt eat at the sewn up edges of soul, her mentor fall to pieces.

And it's his fault.

She had thought that they were family.

Apparently he doesn't put much stock in family. (And he had looked at her with sympathy and knowing and said "You're seeing Craig, aren't you?". Bastard.)

So now she's got her cloak of capable, and a plummeting solve rate, and a tumbling boss. (Mentor, Friend, Sister.)

For Lisbon.


	26. Partners

**Don't own it.**

* * *

><p>The two of them. Bert and Ernie. He'd roll his eyes at the looks they get somedays, but he isn't really a rolling his eyes type of guy. Total silence and slow blinking eyes are so much better at nutcracking.<p>

(Growing up an ethnic minority where action stars were big and white (but sometimes there were silent black blurs on the screen, feet flying).)

Bert and Ernie who both grew up, into guns and gangs, now mismatched in eager words and silences.

"CBI, we're here to talk to [insert suspect name here]."

Cho wants to know why they always run.


	27. Albatross

**I in no way own. Jane and Lisbon are feeling fragile to me.**

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><p>Some days she thinks of the albatrosses hung about their necks. (She wears a cross and he wears a ring, neither of which belonged to them first.) They're both fightingclawingtearing, trying to right sins that cannot be rectified.<p>

Maybe the only difference is that her mother's murderer is dead, so she must settle for substitutes ad nauseam.

Maybe that is their only link. She charges in with silver arrows and he sits in fields prompting butterflies into flight. (But he has taught her about poison rings and daggers in boots.)

(She fights for the living. He fights for the dead.)


	28. Full of I

**No ownership here. Anyone notice how incredibly confident Grace is this season, after last year's Angry!Grace?**

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><p>Once upon a time there was a king and a queen. They had a little red-headed daughter, a princess, who they loved very much. Her birth was such a joyous occasion that they named her Grace, for she was their saving and they hoped that she would grow up <em>full of<em>.

The little princess grew up made of fire and laughter.

One day a terrible darkness came over the kingdom, and it was never again spoke of, but the princess became a knight. And she was good and just and _full of_.

And then her beloved boy broke her.


	29. Full of II

**No ownership here.**

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><p>The broken princess-knight's fire turned white cold and her <em>full of<em> boiled away. And she mourned her beloved-betraying boy.

But then a terrible evil came over the kingdom. And her fellow knights of the table fell into disarray. Dismayed, the princess-knight picked up her broken pieces and sewed them together and welded them together.

She looked around at her fellow knights all in disarray, and plucked up her discarded _full of_ and spun it into a crown. And so now she is the scout and the rear-guard, mended broken pieces leading on, for now, _full of_.


	30. Shakespeare

**I don't own ****_The Mentalist._**

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><p>The horror of missed opportunities.<p>

(Patrick has yet to decide if their's is a tragedy or a comedy. A comedy of errors.

That he always fail. Does that make him the villain?)

_Lord, either let me suffer or let me die_ said Saint Teresa_, _but he thinks that that might have been him instead.

He keeps their names, all of them who suffer and die in this endless battle he plays.

Now Wainwright (how how how?) and Darcy and Rigsby, VanPelt, Cho, Lisbon.

(And yet all he can think is that he came so close. And He slipped through fingers.)


	31. Diana

**Danger Will Robinson! Where is this season taking us? I don't know, because I don't own it.**

* * *

><p>It drips through her veins, burning like ice, and settles somewhere deep in her soul and at the back of her throat. She doesn't know if she has ever felt loathing like this. Doesn't know if she has ever wanted a hunt <em>this bad<em>.

She gave her word.

And now there are webs being spun around her. And she doesn't know how to feel out the vibrations on the threads. And she might just be all on her own.

She's never been one for games. These past years with Jane have taught her how, but.

It might not be enough.


End file.
